The present invention relates to a hard disk drive that has a laminated housing which attenuates noise generated by the drive.
Hard disk drives contain a plurality of transducers that are coupled to magnetic disks. The transducers can read and write information by magnetizing and sensing the magnetic fields of the disks, respectively. The disks are rotated by a spindle motor that is mounted to a base plate.
The transducers are typically integrated into heads that are mounted to corresponding flexure arms. The flexure arms are attached to an actuator arm that is mounted to the base plate. The actuator arm includes a voice coil motor that can move the transducers across the surfaces of the disks. The voice coil motor allows the transducers to access information located within different radial tracks of the disks. The disks, spindle motor and actuator arm are all enclosed by a cover that is attached to the base plate.
The spindle motor and voice coil motor generate acoustic noise that is transmitted into the environment through the cover and the base plate of the drive. The spindle motor may also create vibration that is converted into acoustic noise and emitted by the disk drive. Additionally, the rotating disks create a flow of air that may generate fluid perturbations and resultant acoustic noise.
Acoustic noise is undesirable particularly when the disk drive is assembled into a consumer product such as a computer or a digital video recorder. It would therefore be desirable to provide a hard disk drive that attenuates the noise generated by the drive. It would be desirable to attenuate the noise without significantly increasing the size of the hard disk drive or the cost of producing the drive.
One embodiment of the present invention is a hard disk drive which has a housing that can attenuate noise. The housing may include a first layer that is attached to a second layer and a third layer located between the first and second layers.